The thermal balance is maintained for premature and newborn patients who are under medical care at present essentially either by incubators which are well conditioned and closed by means of a hood or by open care beds, into which, in general, infrared radiation is sent, and in which good accessibility for the treatment is associated with an undesirably high skin temperature and with a great loss of water due to evaporation. An essential drawback of the prior-art incubators is the limited accessibility for medical treatment and care. It is therefore desirable to combine the positive properties of the two prior-art types of devices in a new device. Such so-called hybrid thermotherapy devices combine design features of both the open care beds and of the closed incubators. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,817,002 proposes a thermotherapy device, which can be switched over between a closed incubator and an open care bed, the hood being able to be divided and folded up when needed.
One drawback of this design is that much time and space are required for displacing the hood and the side walls and that the construction and control are complicated.